Archive By Section - News of the Weird

At a high school basketball game in February, 1992, Oklahoma City police officer Eldridge Wyatt became dissatisfied that no fouls were being called on "No. 21" and walked onto the court to point out the player's elbowing to the officials.

At least 300 professional clowns from Mexico and Central America, in Mexico City for a convention, demonstrated against the country's drug-cartel violence by laughing, in unison, nonstop, for 15 minutes.

The Military Times news service, reporting from Afghanistan in August, disclosed a U.S. Marines command directive ordering troops to restrain their audible flatus because, apparently, Afghan soldiers and civilians complained of being offended.

The North Koreans called it a "cruise ship" and tried to establish a business model to attract wealthy tourists from China, but to the New York Times reporter on board, the 40-year-old boat was more like a "tramp steamer" on which "vacationers" paid the equivalent of $470 to "enjoy" five days and nights at sea.

Astate court in Frankfurt, Germany, awarded 3,000 euros - about $4,200 - to Magnus Gaefgen, 36, on his claim that during a 2002 police interrogation, officers "threatened violence" against him if he did not disclose what he knew about a missing 11-year-old boy who was later found dead.

Apparently, officials at the Chattanooga Metropolitan Airport felt the need for professional guidance on rebranding their facility to (as one put it) "carry it into the modern era," and so hired the creative talents of Big Communications of Birmingham, Ala., to help.

Sheriff's deputies in Bergholz, Ohio, arrested three Amish men and charged them in incidents in which other Amish men and women had their homes invaded and their hair - and men's beards - cut off, which are grave insults.

In America, the quest for perfectly straight teeth can lead to orthodontia bills of thousands of dollars, but in Japan, a dental "defect" -- slightly crooked canine teeth -- makes young women more fetching, even "adorable," say many men.